


save your own

by Belfire



Series: Adventures of the Doppelgangers [4]
Category: Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis (Comics)
Genre: Arkham Knight Jay, F/M, Jason is NOT alright, Jason makes people do bad things, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Slade Wilson is a protective dad and you can pry that from my cold dead hands, What the fuck did Jason do?, Wilson & AK typical angst, im just indulging my angsty fantasies, many things happened in venezuela, no doppelgangers in this one, part of a series but can be read apart, people die and i hate that i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:56:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: "I don't have to feel better about it." Slade coolly responded, right as the second-to-last thug alive in the field straddled Jason from behind while another grown man beat fist after fist across his face. Blood exploded but there wasn't so much as a cry of pain.Pain never made Jason utter a noise anymore, he steeled himself through until it was over and he could react to what caused it."It just has to turn out right."





	1. Black Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> A suggestion made by a guest in the early AMs and this sort of... it just happened. Take it and suffer, we know I'm a bad person. 
> 
> More doppelganger stuff to come in the future but I've been craving dad!Slade so here we are.

<strike> _Venezuela, 2013._ </strike>

"Dad, you're making a mistake with that kid." 

"Is that jealousy I hear?" As he said that, Slade felt the weight of Grant's gaze flit to him, the subtlest of glances but it didn't escape him. Side by side, they stood at the edge of a Venezuelan coffee plant field, watching as the crops were trampled by the men involved in the ongoing death match.

"_No_. I just don't think it's a good idea to give a crazy person a loaded gun." To emphasise his point, Grant gestured to the former Robin in the field, merely a tender sixteen years of age and ripping through the unfortunate soldiers Slade cast as his sparring partners. The distance was filled with the death screams and shattering bones of those soldiers. It was a ten to one fight, lethal measures were allowed and Jason was reaping full advantage of that, killing who-so-ever he could get his hands on. 

"Or in this case," Slade's son continued, his voice the only source of sensibility in this calculated madness.

"- Teaching a very mentally unstable kid every way under the sun to kill someone. He needs _help_."

"I am helping him." Was Slade's monotone response, his thick arms folded over his matte black chest plate. He was paying less attention to his own child than the rabid one in the field and it had been that way for quite some time. His priorities shifted depending on where the most work he could do was. 

In this case, _Jason_.

"I don't mean _training_. Actual psychological-"

"Since when were you a therapy person, Grant?" Finally, Slade spared Grant a look from the corner of his only working eye, their gazes aligning like stars on a prophetic date. Like his father, the boy had very blue eyes, husky blue, but it was as far as the family resemblance went - say for his muscular, powerful frame. His hair was dark, between black and brown, with the same clear dusky skin as his mother, Adeline. 

With those things considered, it was odd that Grant inherited Slade's personality and not Adeline's.

"Since you decided to adopt a cripplingly traumatised _child_ and do the exact opposite of what a responsible adult should be expected to." 

"You're an adult, Grant, you're twenty-one, I don't see you doing the responsible thing here." 

"What do you think I'm talking to you about this for? Dad, I know you think you're doing what's best for that kid but he's going to get someone killed and when he _does_, it's gonna be on you." He sounded so convicted, so 100% behind his doomsday warning but what he didn't understand was that everything was completely under control. Slade Wilson, _Deathstroke_, could govern a sixteen-year-old, no matter how murderous or wild he could become. 

"Don't make me regret having you here, son." Sternly, darkly, Slade told him in a voice that couldn't be severalized from a mutter. He adjusted his crossed arms, leaning from one hip on the other as he watched Jason separate a man from his oesophagus. When Grant smartened up and stopped running around with HIVE, he worked with his mother for Team 7 and drifted here when he got bored. It was important to note that Grant did so of his own volition, therefore rendering Slade's point inept but it was the idea that bore the count.

"I'll go when I feel like it, dad, you can't affect that choice and what you're doing with that kid is only making me want to hang around longer." 

"Would you mind telling me why you want to protect Jason so badly?" Slade shifted slightly to face him, genuinely interested because if there was one thing Grant generally _wasn't_, it was charitable. He was mad-capped, yes, and overconfident sometimes, but he wasn't a sociopath like one or possibly both of his parents, and still his humane characteristics didn't explain this sudden surge of care.

"Because I keep thinking what if Joker did what he did to Joey? Or to Rose? She's the same age as Jason is now, if she got fucked up the way he did, you wouldn't want fucking _Ra's al Ghul_ to swoop in and use that to make her a more efficient assassin." There was a severe hardness in Grant's eyes as he walked around Slade to say that, not angry, irritated, but he still didn't understand that everything was boxed into a square of blast-proof glass.

The merc really didn't appreciate the mental image of his daughter being subjected to the same things Jason was, which was the very reason he was doing any of this, to begin with. Just explaining it to his son wasn't easy for many reasons.

"I'd want Rose to be able to protect herself and prevent anything like it happening again." 

Grant clicked his tongue in irritation.

"Alternatively, _you_ could protect her if it mattered so much, all the while not using trauma to turn her into a fucking _psychopath_." Again, he motioned to Jason out in the field with the back of his hand, his shoulder plate clicking softly against the metal protecting his clavicle when he raised his arm.

"Psychopaths are born, not bred. You're thinking about a sociopath." In the very least, Slade's response was disinterested, supervising Jason fight over meeting his son's line of sight. With the Robin training to back him up already, Jason was deadly good, to begin with, but adding lethality to his technique made him plenty to fear. Only an idiot wouldn't.

After Arkham Asylum and Joker, all of that rage and bitterness needed an outlet. Presently, Slade was trying to contain Jason, minimise the destruction he would wage if left alone. Not wanting to kill the kid as any merciful person would, the next best thing was keeping him distracted with sparring sessions and hours of brutal training. 

Grant didn't understand. He was too young to. His intentions were good but his ideology wasn't.

"Does correcting me somehow make you feel better about what you're doing?" Tilting his head, Grant wanted to know with his gaze narrowing slightly. 

"I don't have to feel better about it." Slade coolly responded, right as the second-to-last thug alive in the field straddled Jason from behind while another grown man beat fist after fist across his face. Blood exploded but there wasn't so much as a cry of pain. 

Pain never made Jason utter a noise anymore, he steeled himself through until it was over and he could react to what caused it.

"It just has to turn out right." The merc finished, a lot riding on his sentence, the exact amount going over his son's head but all willing, he would see the method to the madness in time. 

Jaw tight, Grant didn't respond, just turned silently to watch the unfolding bloodshed with a grim expression. Deep down, Slade didn't like them being at odds but he could fix that later, he had the rest of their life expectancy for it. Now... _now_ he was busy. Busy observing the man beating Jason raise a sword above his head to bring down on the kid's exposed throat. 

Grant tensed when the weapon was raised but at the flash of moonlight on the steel, Slade's boy was gone from his side to block the blade against his own, drawn from its sheath faster than the thug could slice Jason down the middle. The sharp clang of metal on metal shattered the air in one crisp cut, reverberating after in a low buzz. 

The thug's sword was edge-to-edge against Grant's, Slade's son the sole physical barrier between Jason and a whole lot of pain, and his husky eyes narrowed with the tug at the corner of his lip, everything standing in silence for the moment that Grant and the man glared at each other. 

And then a heartbeat later, that all crashed into ruin when Ravager spun quickly to tear a deep wound across the thug's abdomen with the faultless weapon. In the same movement, he was kicking him meters back when he screamed and plunging the entire length of his sword through his collarbones and out of his lower chest, driving it down until he was left impaled in the ground, all in one gory display of lightning reflexes. 

Though not saying, Slade nodded to himself in approval. At odds or not, he could admit his son turned out impressive in a fight. 

But naturally, the merc would have stepped in if Grant hadn't. He didn't want Jason skewered. Reluctantly, he cared about that kid. Maybe because any bit of empathy in him, Jason somehow dragged to the surface with his pitiable life story.

Because he was pitiable.

"That it for today, _dad_?" Irritated, Grant addressed Slade while he sharply raised a fist to scare off the person holding Jason against his chest, making the man flinch away without ever laying a finger on him. And who could blame him? Even without his mask and the copious amounts of blood-splatter caking him, Ravager was terrifying to behold, 6'1 and not weighed down by the lag of thirty pounds of armour on his back. 

It would take an army to take him down. An army or a single _good_ shot.

To reply to him, Slade merely nodded, leaving the spot he'd been rooted to in favour of joining his children in the red-drenched field, littered with bodies and ruined coffee plantations. When the sun rose, this scene would raise questions.

The thug who straddled Jason, he was discreetly attempting to leave the scene of his comrades' demise in the hopes of saving himself the same fate, but before his success was solidified, Jason hadn't forgotten him. _Never let an enemy walk_, Slade taught him, therefore unsurprised when the kid tore a gun off Grant's holster and shot the retreating form, once, twice, thrice, through the back when just one bullet would have done the necessary damage.

With an explosion of red, he fell onto the same earth that had seen tens slain tonight, all but a single at Jason's hand.

"You started out good, kid," Slade began in his patient teacher-voice, overlooking the shooting incident as Jason angrily hurled the stolen gun aside into the field and Grant went after to collect it with a low exhale. Hopefully, he would find it, it was _expensive_.

"But the enemy got the jump on you, where did you fuck up?" Every lesson ended this way, with Slade wanting Jason to mentally retrace his steps and find the faulty one, therefore make a note to avoid the same mistake in the future. The theory was nice but acting it out was a process.

His large blue eyes dark and angry, Jason was opening and clenching his fists, grinding his teeth angrily and making the J-scar on his cheek follow the motion. The mark was partly raw and slowly reclosing after the kid tried to cut it off his face last week, during a mental breakdown among many thereafter. He would have carved half of his face off had Slade not been there to stop him with hours of physical restraint. 

He had his hands full here with this individual.

"I didn't _fuck up_." Believing the misconception wholly, Jason snapped at him with an abundance of fire, glaring red-hot rage up at Slade from his considerably lesser vantage, his head only reaching the mercenary's collarbone.

"I would have been fine if _Ravager_ didn't get in the way." His outburst was topped off with Jason angrily swinging his hand towards Slade's son as if the man was unaware of his offspring's presence. 

"Let's not be ungrateful, Jason. _Ravager_ saved your life." No waiver of anything aside from calmness made it into Slade's voice as he addressed his scrambled little apprentice, attempting his best to shift all the blame from himself to Grant. The problem was that he really didn't view himself as the mistaken one here.

"He's just trying to show-off in front of _you_." Jason insisted, uncaring that Grant returned, placing his gun back into the holster at his hip and securing the weapon there with the clip-strap. Out the corner of his peripheral, Grant gave Jason a glance that was the summary of _really_?

"I don't think you heard how dumb that just sounded, _sweetness_." He remarked and thus made Jason's volatile rage flare up heavenward. It showed in his eyes, the darkening of several shades and tiny shift in his pupils, that he wanted to slaughter Slade's son and do it slowly. But he didn't try anything, in control of himself enough to realise the mercenary would intervene. Not that Grant was incapable of holding off a child half his size but he'd pull his punches when doing it. 

He had this advocacy of not hurting kids.

"Where did you go wrong, Jason?" Slade repeated the question and Jason knew full-well that they weren't leaving this field until he answered correctly, and he tried a little harder on this round. His fists squeezed tighter as he thought back, running every strike and dodge through his mind until thirty seconds of buffering lead him closer to the culprit.

"I let them circle me?" He raised his head a fraction when he finally responded, looking to Slade for the feedback to his partly uncertain idea.

"Close." Slade shook his head, long snowy tresses swaying as his arms remained ever folded.

"You lost track of the men behind you by focusing only on the ones you could see. _Never_ assume the enemy is only within visual range. Nine times out of ten, that's not gonna be the case. We'll touch on that tomorrow but in the meanwhile, let's return to HQ and patch you up." Slade might not have gotten to it at first, but he did notice Jason was bleeding from a couple of spots as well as having his lip split and bad bruising taking up space on his face. 

He knew Jason hated anyone touching him, doctors _especially_, so like every one of the kid's injuries, this one was on Slade to fix up. He might be the sole living being whose touch Jason tolerated when absolutely necessary. 

"I don't need patching up," Jason had to know he was lying, right? He _had_ to. There was a long knife cut on his arm that could do with a set of stitches.

"I'm not _that_ beat up." He went on, flinching right then when a tiny stray movement pulled at the wound in question. He covered it with his hand and wrapped his fingers tightly against the blood flow, gaze discarded to the ground as he realised he went against his own point without meaning to.

Argument won without a word in, Slade bent to collect Grant's sword, dragging it from the wounded flesh pile of skewered human and wiping the blood on the grass, he offered it back to his son. Nodding his thanks, Grant accepted it and cleaned it off better himself, to his own satisfaction before he slid it back in his sheath.

"C'mon, children, we have to get back." 

Huffing, Jason trudged off ahead while Slade stayed behind and Grant fell into step beside him.

"_Father_, I still think you're making a giant mistake with that kid." He murmured, careful to remain unheard by Jason, who would not react well to being spoken about behind his back.

"So you keep telling me." They walked along the dirt track winding between fields, back towards their barracks in the heart of San Carlos, a city sleeping peacefully in the golden light of a rising sun, fully unaware of the destruction she harboured. Controlling the damage Jason was capable of was the best Slade could do for her. For everyone.

"But you're not listening. If you really care about Jason, stop teaching him how to kill."

"I'm not teaching him anything he doesn't already know." Slade admitted with an air of finality, the low nature of his tone carrying only far enough for his son to hear.

* * *

<strike> _Venezuela, 2017._ </strike>

_"... He's going to get someone killed and when he does, it's gonna be on you."_

Replaying that long-ago sentence through his head for a countless time, Slade stared at the mannequin that tried and failed to fill out Ravager's suit the way it was meant to be. The ruby-red lenses over the eyes glared at him but it was only plastic, it was different from how they should look when worn by a living, _breathing_ person. 

The appearance couldn't be recreated.

After the fatal mission, Slade did his best to piece the suit together again but twenty to thirty armour-piercing bullets tore through it, making most of it unrepairable and not wanting to stare at the bullet holes, he opted to replace the whole chest plate, kevlar over the abdomen and parts of the arms and neck. But only materials could be replaced. And it didn't fix anything.

He couldn't stand seeing the destruction and bloodstains that would never come out every time he walked by the mannequin's corner in his safehouse, which meant he rarely pulled the sheet from over the display and never without a mushroom cloud of dust when he did. For the first two years, he didn't move it at all, hoping against hope that not seeing it would undo it.

Turns out time didn't fix shit. Jason often said that regarding many matters that Slade used to tell him he was exaggerating the nature of. He wasn't. Some things were as grave as words could describe. 

Snapping out of his thoughts when he heard the door open, Slade worked quickly to cover the mannequin and the suit back up again, throwing the sheet over and watching as it fell, hiding what was left of Ravager beneath it. 

But he would lay awake thinking about it again, like every night for four years since.

Armour clinked together with the footfalls approaching from the darkness, Slade knew it was Jason without having to look, and to say he was unenthusiastic for the kid's presence was an understatement. It meant he had to rapidly collect his thoughts so he could efficiently deal with whatever the issue was now.

But Jason wasn't alone. No; another, far lighter-sounding person walked alongside him and Slade experienced alarm in its purest form when the Arkham Knight came in with his _daughter_... with _Rose_, tagging after him. The emotion might have gotten strong enough to show on his features, it was too flash flood to get under control at once but when he did, it was replaced by the protective urge to keep Rose away from _him_. 

_What_ was she doing _here_? 

She was supposed to be safe at home, in _New York, _with Wintergreen to protect her while her father wasn't there because he was in Venezuela, supervising a warlord. 

"Daddy, Jason said I'd find you here." Rose smiled brightly at him, excited to see him after almost a year since the last time, and she had no idea what the person beside her had done and who he was. 

She looked like she wanted to hug him, Slade would have let her if instinct hadn't taken over first. He stepped by Rose to grab Jason by his shoulder and drag him into the hall outside, giving the quick muttered excuse of,

"Hang on, Rose. I need a word with him."

She was confused. Jason wasn't. He knew what this was about even before Slade slammed him into the wall of the hallway and held him there by a fistful of whatever he could hold onto. A thud went through Jason and through the space around them but he didn't react to the flare-up of pain, staring at Slade with an emotionless expression.

"I know what you're gonna say, old man, but _chill_. It's not like I could possibly kill both of your kids in the same place, could I?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hush, I want Grant to be a sensible young man who makes mistakes and I shall have it no other way.


	2. Bad Moon Rising

** _ <strike>2013.</strike> _ **

** _ _ **

Shivering, shaking, arms wound tightly around his slender body, Jason stumbled down the hall in the dark, his breathing shallow and coming out in sharp bursts. Another nightmare that was more a vivid memory among the many that wouldn't stop running through his head. This time it was Black Mask, burning shapes and patterns into his flesh with a blowtorch. He was laughing. He was smiling behind his mask. He found it hilarious that Jason was screaming and thrashing and crying.

**"Ahahaha! But it was so funny!"**

Panting heavily, Jason was only aware he lost his footing when his side crashed into the wall and he leaned heavily on it, accidentally letting a tiny wounded noise escape his parted lips. Involuntarily, his muscles became weak, too weak to hold him and he slid down the wall, crumbling to the ground like so many times before.

Crying into his knees until the sun came up was tempting but he didn't want anyone to find their fearless militia commander sobbing in the hallway like a broken child. It would destroy his reputation and right now, that needed to be a rock wall with no cracks or way over or around. He needed to be a _man_, not a child. Otherwise, his growing army would lose their respect for their commander and all faith in him, and then destroying Bruce and Gotham would prove far more challenging.

Sniffing, he aggressively wiped away the tears that had begun to form, making them disappear on the back of his hand. The second he could, Jason forced himself to rise and leaning on the wall, he walked himself further down the hall, all of him trembling violently despite a thing he attempted to calm himself with.

Apparently, there was still a piece of startled little Robin chick somewhere within him because an unconscious thought was that he wanted to go find Slade. Which was dumb. The mercenary wasn't comforting, Jason didn't want to be _comforted_, he just... he'd just like to know where Slade was. And that was idiotic since, after everything he'd gotten through by himself, he clearly didn't need a big strong adult for a thing.

Repeating that almost enough times to make it true, Jason found himself stumbling around until he reached the small gymnasium. He wanted his soldiers to be fit and keep fit, he had this place inbuilt directly into HQ and it was a nice quiet location to beat a punching bag until his panic subsided somewhat. During the night, when no one was here, he often came down and worked out past the point of exhaustion, determined not to be a _weakling_.

Only this time, he wasn't alone and that became apparent by the dull glow illuminating the corner of the gym, emanating from the laptop resting on Grant's thighs. Why was _Slade's son _here? He was sitting on a wide stack of exercise mats, in a nest of blankets, watching some show on the computer. Leaning on him was a half-eaten San Carlos bag of chips, cheap and unremarkable in flavour but something to mindlessly chew on.

He was so engrossed by the show that he didn't immediately notice Jason, but when he did, his light blue eyes flitted up from the screen.

"What's up, kiddo?" He asked, hitting pause with a loud click

"What are you doing here?" Jason ignored his question, sceptical as he approached. His footfalls were silent but amplified by the tall roof and empty open space. Tap, tap, tap they went, coming closer until he was standing by the exercise mats Grant sat on.

"Binge-watching Netflix. This is the only quiet place." Grant shrugged and at the same time, he opened his bundle of blankets a little bit.

"Wanna come watch with me?" He offered, making space for a second party to join him. His invitation, it came by as odd. Extremely odd... since they weren't friends. As far as Jason knew, he didn't really like Slade's son, but... maybe it would beat being alone with the screeching disjointed voices. At least for one night.

A little bit hesitant, tentative, Jason crept a slightly nearer to Grant and when he didn't make any sudden movements that would be threatening, Jason gained the bare minimum of confidence. He instinctively went to the very edge, as far from Grant as he could - just to be safe.

Grant offered him some of the blanket but he declined with a shake of his head, to which his response was a shrug and the click of the show going back on.

Jason didn't know what this was, something about Rome and gladiators, it appeared, and it wasn't remarkably interesting to him but it was a nice distraction from memories that never left him alone. The scantily clad men fighting with swords and screaming was very distracting. It made the night pass remarkably fast.

"Spartacus is totally gay for Crixus." Absent, Grant remarked halfway through season two, munching chips from his cupped palm. Jason was still holding the chip Grant gave him two episodes ago, in between his index and thumb. He was unsure about eating it.

"But that's not his fault. Manu Bennett is hot as fuck. Hands down, Crixus is the best character here." Grant had an intent frown as he stared at the next scene play out between the characters, Jason watched his complete focus from the corner of his eye. And he was so confused. This was just a show on Netflix, so trivial, why was he this invested?

After a crash course in the earlier season and a little while to get his bearings, Jason found this show was... mildly entertaining. He wasn't as into it as Grant but he liked the tone. Meaningless death, violence, war, friends dying, torture, rape... it was remarkably relatable.

"That ain't so hard. I can do that." It sounded like Grant was trying to tell himself that more than Jason, watching the celebrated gladiator Gannicus pull off a perfect backflip and in the same movement, he decapitated three enemies with the swing of his broad sword.

Humming in quiet agreement, Jason nodded. If anyone, Deathstroke's son could do that. Or it was probably safest to agree he could.

They were on the last episode of season two and Jason's eyelids were growing heavy, he was leaning to one side without meaning to. He didn't notice that he started drifting off but Grant caught it quick.

"We can watch season three later, kid." Pausing it, he said, pulling the blanket around Jason with one hand while the other kept the laptop from falling as he moved.

"Don'... wanna..." Jason mumbled sleepily, a fraction of his awareness present, so out of his head that he didn't notice when he'd leaned over so much his head was resting on Grant's shoulder. He wasn't that tired... really... he was just studying the inside of his eyelids. _Really_...

He vaguely heard the low, amused chuckle Grant gave or the click of the laptop closing.

"You're gonna pass out, Jason and this shit's more fun to watch with company, so let's finish it later, okay?" The blanket was pulled all the way over Jason and by this point, he was mostly gone, slumping onto the exercise mats when Grant carefully slid off. Curling up tighter around his knees, Jason didn't panic for the first time in ages when touched, there was nothing menacing about Slade's son scooping him up gently and carrying him off to bed.

He left him there, in his covers with the door ajar to allow in a crack of light.

_... Grant's nicer than he looks_, was the singular drowsy thought that sluggishly moved through Jason's head before he fully lost consciousness.

* * *

"Where are you going?" Appearing in the locker room, Slade interrupted Grant getting geared up in his Ravager attire, giving his father a confused glance, in the middle of pulling his head and arms through the top half. Say for the two of them, no one was here, all of Jason's militia off on a mission their sixteen-year-old commander sent them on in separate parts of the city. So far, his armed forces consisted of a hundred strong but the past few weeks had seen an alarming growth rate.

Yes, he was sixteen. Yes, he was building an army.

That was going to be a whole thing Slade needed to deal with later.

"I have to go meet Mom outside of San Carlos. She's leading her team on a mission and I want to go along and make sure she's safe." Grant finished his sentence by pulling the suit down over his torso and starting the task of closing every clasp and buckle that kept it fixed firmly into place. The armour as a whole was impenetrable, Slade would know because he had it custom made and put the integrity of the metal and kevlar through rigorous testing with gun and sword, explosives or anything that they could expect to run into in the field.

He liked his children the way most did; safe.

"Very sweet of you, son, but put your plans to a halt. I need you here." Because as aforementioned, none of Jason's personnel was present and a source of Slade's gave him a last-minute forewarning about something happening later today that would trigger the kid to a catastrophic scale.

"Why?" Grant's dark brows knit, he tilted his head slightly to one side as he finished with the last buckle without looking at it.

"Is it something to do with Ja-"

"Yes." Slade sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really didn't like that he had to bring his own children into this babysitting game but today, he didn't see another option. It was just this once anyway, would it be venturous to ask what's the worst that can happen?

"I'm going out, I can't supervise Jason if I'm not here so I need you to stay with him." The mercenary explained, watching the tiny shifts in his son's eyes as he registered what this information meant. The boy wanted to protect his mother above anything, it showed.

"But... _mom_. I have to go on that mission with her." His rebellious streak a thing of the past, Slade could tell his boy was torn between what was being asked of him by opposing parents. He wanted to obey them both, Adeline because he wanted to protect his mother and Slade since he was asking for his son's help.

"It will only take an hour, you can catch up with your mother then."

He considered it, chewing on his bottom lip for a spell before he gave a small hum and nod of agreement.

"Just an hour. And then I gotta go, even if you're not back by then."

Slade nodded as well.

"That's fair. Thank you." With that, he was going to leave when the same daunting thought he'd had for a while now drifted through his mind once again. At the doorway, he paused to dwell on it.

Much like the mirakuru, whatever HIVE pumped into Grant's blood to activate his metagenes came with the aftereffect of synthetic insanity. The healed over track marks on Grant's arms proved he wasn't taking the doses anymore, thus was a bit more in control of his own head but Slade did wonder how long until that began to affect the reliability of his powers.

It worried him. The healing factor especially.

He looked over his shoulder to his son, who was busy loading his guns and no longer paying Slade any attention. He was focusing primarily on the task and that alone.

"Grant... if something... happens, don't get in the middle, alright?"

Grant regarded him in confusion, swept over bangs drifting further to one side with the tilt of his head.

"Dad, I'm literally just babysitting. Nothing's gonna happen."

Nodding, Slade silently agreed that it was probably a truthful statement but couldn't shake the niggling of a sense of the bad moon on the horizon. A foreboding bad moon rising against the nightfall.

But that along with everything on the planner, he could worry about later. Now his priority should be keeping it from Jason that Black Mask was going to be a few cities over from San Carlos, commencing an arms smuggling deal. He'd had his hands on and around the kid plenty of times, Jason would go mental if he saw him now. 

And he would get himself killed by Mask's legion of bodyguards.

Slade wasn't sure how he was going to keep it under wraps yet but he would get to it.

The merc almost told his son to up his guard and be cautious but reasoned the knot of unease was his paranoia coming into play too strong. If the feeling didn't pass, he would tell Grant to watch his back later when he saw him again.

He wouldn't be gone for long anyway.

* * *

Was Jason really so supervisable that Slade couldn't leave without plunking his son in charge? Like this was a sleepover with the parents going away for the night? Truthfully, the sixteen-year-old didn't know at all where the mercenary was on his way to but was almost completely certain that it wasn't anything for him to fret over.

Slade wasn't a backstabber... maybe.

Trying to brush it aside, Jason focused on the task. He was intending on taking out Tomas Cortez, the new leader of his biggest rival gang after Jason shot the former ring leader in front of his men. It kicked the hornet's nest pretty bad, pissed people off but that was good, it meant they would come at him and save him going to them.

So that's what he was doing, back to his war-waging self and trying to pretend that Deathstroke's son didn't carry him to bed last night. It was a nice and warm moment, just being a normal kid and watching something dumb on Netflix, but he'd rather pretend it didn't happen and concentrate on the end goal.

It was going to be a simple step to take next. His intel told him that Tommy boy was going to be in the lower city district in half an hour, which is where he was a sitting duck. Pump him full of lead and the rest would fall into place. Leaderless a second time, his gang couldn't deny the new power rising in San Carlos and those who weren't smart enough to sign allegiance could join their commanders in unnamed roadside graves.

He needed to give it time but Jason intended to be powerful enough to break Gotham's legs and bring her to her knees. Her and her cowled defender alongside one another

Drawing his hood further over his head, the garment really wasn't ideal for the Venezuelan midday sun, he was baking alive but didn't want anyone to see his face or the scar on it. He had work to do, he couldn't do it if people were going to stop and stare at the scarred white kid who looked like Bruce Wayne's adopted son.

"I know I should dislike Lucretia... but I kinda don't. She reminds me of Mom." The disguised Ravager at Jason's side mused, clad in civvies to conceal his armour and weapons beneath. The sword hung from his hand, however, free and for all the world to see. In Venezuela, this was normal enough for people not to ask why.

"That's not a good thing, Grant. Lucretia is evil." Jason informed him, in case he'd missed the last two seasons.

"No, she's not. Sure, she's a murderer and all, but she's the real brains of that relationship. She masterminded every - hold on." His conversational tone vanished almost at once when Grant saw something before Jason did, and he quickly tracked the other's gaze to an SUV parked horizontally across the street ahead of them.

There was a gun hidden beneath Jason's hoodie, he barely had his hand around it before a trio of men stepped out behind them, and they weren't strangers. Immediately, Jason recognised them as members of Tomas's gang and even Tomas himself, standing between two others and swinging a knife. He was wearing a long grin.

At once, Jason wasn't worried. He could take these losers alone, having Grant with was just extra compensation.

"Hola, you must be the gringo trying to take over San Carlos?" Tomas asked in his strong accent, a contemptuous smirk widening but he wasn't looking at Jason when he addressed his actions, he was looking at _Grant_. And would the misconception be surprising? No one would hold a teenager responsible for the wave of slaughtered gang members in recent times, they'd think a _man_ did it. 

And with his powerful physique, the outlines of his armour showing beneath his clothes, the sword in plain sight and the fact that he was Deathstroke's son, Grant looked like a _killer_. He looked capable of what Jason had done.

And he didn't correct the mistaken identity, shooting Jason a silencing scowl when he tried to make wrongs right.

"And you must be the clown who thinks he can stop me." Slightly, Grant cocked his head, his pale eyes drifting slowly up and down Tomas in an unsettling, unimpressed manner, as if to size him over and figure out how much force it would take to break his neck. Jason was silently shocked by how quickly Slade's son's demeanour went from chatty and discussing a Netflix show to a cold and calculated contract killer, and it made it easier to believe all those ghastly stories about the Ravager.

For now, Jason remained mum, letting Grant take this one, see how it played out, but he had no intention of this misconception going further than the alley. People were going to know that the Arkham Knight did this, not Ravager.

"How's about you mosey on outta here before I hurt'cha, chico?" Threateningly, Grant took a slow step that closed the distance between himself and Tomas to less than a meter, and although they were big men themselves, a waver of unease crept down the other gangbangers' spines. Unsurprising, Grant was scary.

But Tomas wasn't as easily intimidated.

"I had other ideas, actually." The words were barely fresh from his sneering lips before the area around them filled with the clicks of multiple firearms, a quick second look showed gunmen in the vacant dark windows, their weapons aimed at Jason and Grant from every conceivable angle. Shit. This just got a bit hairier than Jason had wagered on but still, it wouldn't be impossible not to get gunned down in the street.

In his element, Grant took his time, deliberately examining the weapons, and he gave his sword a playful swing when returning his attention to Tomas.

"A'ight, I see how it is. You and I and those twen'y snipers can do this whole song and dance but you ain't gonna shoot a kid, are ya?" The blade of his formidable weapon swept towards Jason in motion, and Jason's outrage was sparked like a wildfire. _Fucking kid_?! He was about to say something about that when he remembered Slade's lesson._ Don't focus solely on the enemy in front_... there were ten to their sides too, flanking them, and Grant appeared to be concentrating on Tomas _so_...

"Hmm..." Tomas chewed his lip, examining Jason for his threat level and he wasn't likely to find any, Jason was fully aware he looked even younger than he was. Undernourishment or something. 

Initially, Slade had thought he was thirteen.

"We ain't got no quarrel with you, boy. Off to your mother." Tomas stated, jerking his head for Jason to get lost. It went against his core instinct but Jason gave a meek nod and mumbled a quiet,

"Yes, sir." He didn't want them to be suspicious of him as he skittishly crept by, keeping his head down to avoid being unveiled as the threat he posed. If he understood correctly, then Slade's son would take care of the men within sight range while Jason dealt with the ones surrounding him.

It was a good plan, one that could only be attributed to the skill of a man trained by Deathstroke. Given how chatty and carefree Grant was outward, Jason sometimes forgot he wasn't stupid. Even if he spent too much time pondering the perceivable outcomes of something as meaningless as Spartacus.

Discreetly, Jason filled his palms with the two guns Slade let him keep, counting the men he'd seen and calculating them between how many bullets there were in his clips. He knew it'd take one per guy, he could make the kill shots easy, so no worry. 

"Oh, and by the way," Grant pulled his red-lensed mask over his taunting smirk, altering his voice from human to mechanical. 

"I'm not the Arkham Knight. You just let him into your blindside." 

Alarm flashed across Tomas' features but he didn't get a chance to react to the news before a swift swing of Grant's sword parted his head from his body with an eruption of blood. Just as quick, he lunged at the remaining men within his reach and that's about the moment bullets started to bounce off his armour in sparks. 

They wouldn't get through, Jason knew that well, but he bet they were distracting. To help out, he nailed two of the gunmen in the head, an effective shot but the unfortunate thing about it was that it drew attention to him, the sixteen-year-old who wasn't sporting a whole ass suit of armour. Unlike the Ravager, those bullets would go through him and that's what he sought to avoid when leaping behind the cover of the SUV left across the street. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! The shots went, the snipers aiming to get Jason when they realised their chances of taking Grant out were low to nil, and they couldn't see their boss get decapitated without taking someone's head in return.

Jason's back was pressed hard against the car that was the only thing keeping him semi-safe from the automatic weapons and their wielders. He took a massive risk by rapidly glancing over his cover, almost getting clipped in the head while he did but there was fruit from the effort; he caught Grant's eye and saw his chance. 

Snatching a grenade off his belt, Jason pulled a pin in his teeth and tossed it at Ravager. Slade had taught them to be good at knowing what their partner-in-battle was thinking, a brief second of eye contact was all it took for Grant to understand what Jason was doing so it didn't alarm him to have an explosive chucked in his direction.

_Clang_! The sharp noise snapped through the air, the flat of Grant's blade colliding with the grenade like a bat and sending it hurtling directly through the open window a gunman was using as his vantage point. The fiery explosion sent rocks and debris sky high, just like the remains of several men within range and that left only a handful to take out.

"Nice job, kid. Dad and doctore would be proud." Calling out over the gunfire, Grant was wearing a grin behind his mask, Jason heard it even through the modulator, and he wondered why it made him feel a little bit... _confident_? Fuck it, he didn't have time for that stupid shit, not when there was a war to wage here. 

The Arkham knight didn't need anyone's words of praise. No fucking way.

It took them twenty seconds in the longest to demolish the remainder of their opponents and Jason joined Grant in the centre field of the carnage, dirt and sand sticky with blood. Calmly, Jason stepped over four bodies to get to where his comrade-in-arms was cleaning his sword of redness and viscera, his face yet hidden. 

"Proud of ya, kiddo." Grant commented with the majority of his attention on the weapon, but he sounded so genuine and it grated on that part of Jason that was severely uncomfortable with compliments. Especially when there didn't appear to be anything Grant was gaining from giving them. 

"That's some A level strategy." 

"I... it's nothing special." Mumbling, Jason looked away, rubbing his hands on his thighs in discomfort that couldn't be any more obvious to the naked eye. The most he ever got from Slade was the occasional nod of approval and less than that from Batman, he didn't know what to do with this flattery. 

"I thought it was pretty cool." 

"You're the one who split us up. It was your idea, not mine." Grant wasn't really going to pretend he had no claim in their quick victory, was he? 

"Yea, but you got what I was tryna communicate to you without me having to say anythin'. Dad's gonna be pleased to hear you're - _kid_!"

Sharp pain speared through Jason's shoulder the moment Grant exclaimed that, he gasped and was thrown forth by the invisible impact, his hand flying to cover the wound gushing blood down his arm. Wh - _what_? Did they miss a guy or - 

It happened faster than Jason's pain-stricken mind could wrap around; Grant dragged Jason behind him protectively and sent shot after shot in the direction the bullet came from. The gunmen opened fire on Ravager, his armour was there to get in the way of damage but a rapid inspection of the exit wound through his shoulder and the teen realised it was too big to be an ordinary bullet. Oh no. 

All in half a second, Jason's worst fears were confirmed by the wet thunk of a slug slamming into Grant's chest, cutting clean through his armour plating and kevlar like a hot knife through butter. The sense of nausea overwhelmed Jason because he felt the thud and the splatter of blood hit the side of his face. He felt that and the seemingly endless cycle of bullets that came after it. 

And a muffled noise of pain was the only sign that it was real on Grant's part. 

Through the onslaught, Grant stumbled back only a foot and his aim on his shooter hardly wavered. But he was losing his strength faster than he could regenerate. 

Jason spun around him and with his good hand, he locked his sights on the sniper, firing the gun out of his hand with one quick and desperate shot. The clang was followed by the bangs of him being filled with lead from Grant's gun, blood and screams expanding in the air, then nothing but the click-clicking of the empty clip and uselessly pulled back trigger. 

Urgently, Jason looked to his companion, eyes wide with worry, and his horror intensified when he saw the countless ragged lesions stretching across Grant's body, piercing his chest, his abdomen, arms and neck, all leaking streams of blood. The worthless, empty gun fell with a thwap into the forming puddles of crimson.

All over, it seemed, red rivulets rolled down him. In mild confusion, the Ravager stared at the blood cupped in his palms before his gaze flitted to the holes in the metal his suit was made of. 

"Dammit..." Weak, he grumbled and in the silence, Jason dropped the gun from his shaking hand when the red-lensed eyes met his, right as a pump of blood bubbled between Grant's teeth, staining his mask. He swayed in place. 

Horrified, Jason couldn't do anything but watch him hit the ground. There were too many punctures for any amount of pressure to keep all the blood in. Not for the first time, Jason found himself utterly powerless.

* * *

The wounds didn't heal up like they were supposed to.

The suit didn't protect him as it was meant to.

Up until then, Jason had never seen Slade cry. Whether or not the man of stone had tear ducts at all had been debatable. Yet here the teen stood, watching in silence as his fearless mentor broke down when his dead son was delivered into his arms, more of him splattered in the dirt and dust of the street than what remained in his suit. 

Tears rolled down Slade's distraught face, cupping Grant's bloody cheek with a trembling hand.

An icy cold numbness growing like a chrysalis inside Jason, he recognised it as the same sensation that kept him alive through all of Arkham. He wondered when it had melted enough for him to feel its return.

He looked down at the blood drying on his open hands and slowly, he curled them into fists. It was difficult to focus on anything except Slade repeating a hushed mantra of 'no... no, no, no' as he cradled the cooling remains of his eldest's body, hugged to his chest so tight they were both soaking in crimson.

Jason had seen people die. A lot of people. But this was different. He didn't know the others, he didn't know their _families_ and he owed them nothing. He owed Slade _everything_, his life, his freedom, existence as he knew it, and this was his repayment? 

Jason didn't even have to explain how and why he was the blame for this. Tomas was after the Arkham Knight, Grant was protecting Jason when he pulled him out the way, and those armour piercing bullets were custom made to attack the Knight's militia. 

It was all so sickeningly delicious, how it fed into itself. This death and mayhem was an endless cycle and he was at the centre of it. He was _causing_ it. It was becoming reality that anyone who came within range didn't make it out alive and Jason could either be afraid of it or weaponize it. 

This just made him realise that being Jason accomplished nothing but the pain and death of people he allowed himself to begrudgingly care about. Being the Arkham Knight was all that would ensure nothing like this happened all over.

Again, Jason looked to Slade and this time, the blue of his eyes burned with a new coldness, unlike all the things before it. It was intent. It was determined. And this time, the sight of the mercenary holding his son's body in shaking arms didn't feel like a tragedy. It was motivation. Everyone the Arkham Knight could possibly get into his talons was going to die, this he promised. At least he should intentionally cause it. 

"Like I said, Slade, it would have been fine if _Ravager_ didn't get in the way." Jason's growl garnered only a dark and weary look through the white hair partly in Slade's face, features stricken by grief and by anger towards the men who did this. He needn't glance any further than the one before him.

"Like it or not, kid, you didn't do this." Low, Slade replied, his voice far from the feared Deathstroke people subconsciously wrote into horror novels. He sounded like a father who'd just lost a child. 

"That's what makes it hilarious to me." Jason cocked his head, never once did his gaze stray to Grant's still form. He didn't focus on the blankness in the parted husky blue eyes or get drawn in by the sheer amount of blood there was. Even Slade slowly stroking Grant's matted hair back was irrelevant.

"It just shows that with or without effort, people are gonna get killed. I'll just make the best of that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear in mind, Jay's pretty damn crazy and therefore his thought process doesn't make a lotta sense.


	3. Black Sunset

Rose tried and she failed to see why her father was so against her spending any time with the Arkham Knight. Slade tried to be in the way but Rose had her methods of getting past him to the object of her desire. And in this case, said object was a _gorgeous_ 6'1 militia commander who was every girl's wet dream. She had never seen anyone more physically appealing to her base desires and since dad wouldn't tell her why she should avoid Jason, she was going to oblige and go all in.

If there was no basis that Slade could offer to staying away from Jason, then why stay away from Jason? _Logic_.

She asked one of Jason's soldiers where their leader was and they pointed her in the direction of the gymnasium. She expected to find the terror-striking Knight of Arkham hard at work maintaining his diamond-cut muscle structure, yet another sight awaited her altogether.

She'd never seen Jason in less than his sheets of moulded armour, so commonly worn it was easy to slip into beliefs of it being part of his body. But here the impossible was, the man removed from the metal shell, crossed-legged on a stack of exercise mats in the corner of the gym. He was watching something on his phone with his headphones in, so engrossed he didn't notice Rose until she was sliding onto the spot beside him.

Unalarmed, Jason's eyes drifted to her slowly, he didn't turn his head or say anything, but he removed a single headphone and offered it to her wordlessly. Her glossed lips turned into a smile when she accepted it, sliding the silicone bud into her ear and leaning slightly on Jason's strong shoulder. He was warm. So comfortably warm she could sleep here.

She took in what they were watching and thought to herself that it looked like Spartacus, that show Grant used to be obsessed with. She wondered if he got to know the end conclusion or was he too busy dropping off the map? From what she last heard, he was in Venezuela for a spell but vanished with no word, according to Slade. If he knew where Grant went, he never disclosed the information.

But Grant was like that. He'd freely come and go and eventually resurface as completely fine. She, Joey, and Adeline were miffed but not worried as such. If something was wrong, as the last person to see Grant, Slade would have told them.

She didn't worry about that.

Quickly, Rose made note of a bizarre pattern of behaviour on Jason's part. He'd watch the whole episode, the finale of season two, and then never moved onto what came next, instead rewatching the whole thing. And he did it again and again and again. Nothing was breaking the cycle.

"Jason, what are you doing?" She asked after watching the third time he did this, and she leaned back on one arm to examine him from a distance, as if it revealed the answers.

"Why aren't you moving onto season three?" 

Jason shrugged, not focusing her with a look.

"I don't want to watch the rest. We can do that later..." He said quietly, a thought far removed and she got the notion that this was a far deeper matter but she best not press.

"Who's your favourite character?" She asked, leaning back on him but couldn't help but notice the tense line of his muscles. She wanted to change the subject of conversation. 

"Crixus. Hands down the best." His reply sounded as if from the prerecorded tape of an answering machine.

"Huh... my brother used to say that. _Frequently_." Or write a three-part essay on why all other characters were inferior in comparison.

"Lucretia's kinda cool too."

Rose frowned, recognising his phrase as a twin to the statement her own brother would so often shove down hers and Joey's throats. _Lucretia's not evil, she's just smarter than all the men._

"Jason... did you know Grant? He was in Venezuela a while, maybe you saw where he went?" Rose allowed a note of hopefulness into her voice but the small nod he gave, despite being confirmation, didn't make her feel reassured.

"Yes, I know where he is. I'll show you later if you want." He stared at the paused screen, never meeting her eyes.

"Is he still in Venezuela?"

Jason turned his head with no way to do it with less haste, and what he said made ominous unease stir within Rose.

"He never left."

"... That's so typical." Rose rolled her eye, scoffing. Why did she expect Grant would have gone further than here to hide away from the world? No wonder Slade never expressed open concern.

"Yeah..."

Halfway through the fourth time watching the same episode, Rose was beginning to get bored out of her mind. How many times could Jason really watch the same thing? She couldn't do it, no matter her efforts to be patient.

Careful so as not to startle him, Rose took his face in her hands, turning his head to look at her and didn't miss the way his gaze flitted from her eyes to her lips, where they lingered for seconds past innocence.

A wave of heat washed over her before he touched her.

One of them leaned forth first, she didn't remember who but the brush of his mouth on hers was sweetness without comparison. Deepening the kiss almost at once, Jason's hand crept to cup the back of her head, waves of her hair flowing over him, and he was so gentle with her that Rose couldn't believe those same bare hands had crushed men's throats to splinters.

Now, in her time prowling the playing fields, Rose had only kissed women as savoury as the finest of wines and Jason was the single man she'd ever felt attracted to, but she didn't expect the experience to be different. Yet it was a world apart. He seemed to sense every movement before she made it and in turn, move just the right amount to meet her halfway.

Jason dropped his phone carelessly, his fingers finding their way onto the soft curves of her hips, squeezing ever so lightly. He was gentle, _kind_, guiding Rose with a kind of patience no one had ever given her. Was this a dream? Where was the Brutish Arkham Knight with blood-drenched hands?

Her teeth closed lightly on Jason's lower lip and pulled it into her mouth, tracing the scars he caused by biting through it many times in the past.

Just as she was beginning to long for him to tear her clothes free from her body and pin her to the mats, Jason's weight on her lessened to nought as he pulled away, eliciting a low sigh.

"What - what are you doing?" Confused, her cheeks rich with colour and heat he caused, Rose blinked rapidly, lacking understanding when the man she would have gladly let into her sat back on his folded legs, interests dissolving. Did she - did she misread the situation?

"_Jason_?" She pressed, asking herself what came upon him when he wouldn't meet her eyes? He was looking elsewhere, at something perhaps not even there, and when he did return his gaze, a nameless element in it had changed.

A cold swept over her, chilling to her bone. He didn't look like himself anymore.

"I don't like being called Jason." He stated, void of anything but coldness, pushing off the stack of mats and collecting his phone. Speechless, she watched him go towards the door then pause at the mouth of it. Every muscle on his formidable body was stiffer than stone, the way only the Arkham Knight carried himself.

"I said I'd take you to your sibling, so _come_."

* * *

Jason, or Arkham Knight as he desired to be called, he didn't revert back to the man from the gymnasium and again, Rose felt uneasy in his company. And yet she still followed him as he lead her through the twisting maze of San Carlos alleyways. Where was he taking her? She was more confused than when he denied her.

Rose wasn't arrogant, she wasn't weighed down by the burden of pride, but she also wasn't blind to the way men gazed upon her. With lusting eyes and every fibre twitching to mount her. Jason might be far removed from humanity but he was still a _man_, what held him back?

Rose wanted clarification, she wanted to ask but something told her not to. Their solemn purpose to this location didn't allow it. This place, where they were, it appeared as the grounds of a fight many seasons past. The crumbling walls of surrounding buildings were nothing but burned black rock, lined with entry points.

What happened here? Being merely present caused an unmissable grimness to fall over Jason, one she shared without intention. It was dark here, she couldn't see what caused it but ignorance wasn't possible. This alleyway had seen bad things.

"I... I thought you were taking me to Grant?" Her voice was quiet in between the tall blackened walls with this man's back to her. Still, despite the cold chills his demeanour sent crawling down her spine, Rose hated that she felt this infatuation with the Arkham Knight. It was wrong. It had to be. Nothing born of this nature could be right.

"I am. You see, Rose..." Jason's voice trailed off, she could see the muscles in his back tense as his fingertips brushed over the holes in the clay wall, his mind far away from this place.

"I didn't know him long but I liked your brother. I really did. He was nice to me. He didn't have to be." A tiny distant smile, sad and reminiscent at once, it flickered onto his lips as his nail absently picked away at the crumbs of loose dirt. Without warning, he drew a knife Rose didn't know he had and jammed the blade into the depression in the wall. He twisted the knife, holding his palm out when a bullet fell into it.

"He stayed up with me when I couldn't sleep, encouraged me when I did good, treated me like a normal person... And then I got to see the clip of an AK be emptied in him... He's dead, Rose."

"Wh... _What_?" Rose's eyes widened, in disbelief or in horror. That couldn't be true. She didn't believe what she was hearing. Slade wouldn't keep her sibling's death from the family.

And yet nothing in Jason's tone betrayed a lie.

"Grant's been dead for four years. Dead and cold. Blown into a gory mess of blood and viscera." As he explained, a morbid light crept into his eyes, turning the bullet in his hand to study the ancient dried black blood crusting the seams. Was he getting some sick thrills from this?

"He died right here, where we're standing."

Tears began to burn in her eyes when she realised he was telling the truth, a piece of her heart tearing away with just the few sentences he spoke. No... not Grant. Not her big brother.

"And the _best_ part?" Smiling in that creepy way of his, he looked up from the dirty brass slug that tore through Grant once upon a time. Why was he showing her this place? Digging up bullets to make sure she could see the length and cruel glint of the sunlight along its metal. The tip was flattened from when it struck Grant and Jason was making her involuntarily torment over if the ground she presently stood on was once wet with her brother's blood.... or if his body lay growing cold beneath her boots.

The notion twisted a dagger into her breaking heart.

She bet Jason was fully aware his little story was torture to her. It would be impossible not to see in the way she continued shifting her position and licking her lips, fidgeting with her fingers or rubbing at her clammy hands as grief swelled in her eyes.

And he didn't care. Because for all his dazzling good looks and occasional sweet moments, he was twisted.

"_Jason_..." Wary of him, Rose tried to stop him from finishing the point he was leading to, sensing she wouldn't like it, but he had a knack for selective deafness.

"The best part is that it was completely pointless! Haha, fucking _pointless_!" Over his head, he hurled the bullet into an orchard behind a tall wall and he started laughing maniacally, out of nowhere, bent double with his arms around his heaving sides.

Eyebrows flying up in surprise, Rose gaped at the man as he fell onto all-fours, a mindlessly cackling mess for mere seconds before he laid flat on his belly, laughing into the sand. 

Her tears stilled by the harsh sting of shock. What the actual _fuck_ was wrong with him? Was he.... was he making light of Grant dying where they stood? No, that couldn't be it because listening to his laughter, there was no note of delight that Rose could pick up on. He sounded... sad.

Clearly, Grant meant something to Jason and that alone sparked a mutuality between them.

Approaching him, Rose began lowering herself onto her knees and reaching out to him, but he came alive and slapped away her hand before it could touch him. She gasped when he grabbed her around her wrist, quickly regaining his footing and dragging her up with him. She was too startled to stop him, too confused to.

"Slade doesn't understand that I really didn't want Grant to be shot." He frantically said, never letting Rose go and his grip only tightened like a vice. His manic, erratic behaviour was scaring her, no lie.

"I didn't want him to get blown up into a bloody mess but I couldn't stop it and just watched it happen." His words, what he was saying, none of it matched his behaviour. He sounded like he wanted to express regret but he tossed her up against the wall the bullets were lodged in, holding her to it, and he must have fully lost his mind because he drove their lips violently together. Their teeth collided painfully, his gentle side that initiated with a peck before long gone.

Rose found herself too shocked to throw him off her even though he kissed her this harshly. It was never gentle, to begin with but its intensity spread like a wildfire.

Jason was so tall he had to bend his spine to reach Rose's lips, hands roughly gripping her head on either side, strands of snow-white hair twisting around his fingers but the burn went unnoticed. Snapping out of her shock, Rose bit Jason's tongue when it thrust past her teeth, her mouth filling with the taste of blood. They were both hurting the other but he appeared to only be doing it enough to trigger her to hurt him back. _Worse_.

With her greatly enhanced meta strength, Jason knew Rose could destroy him, break his bones and tear his limbs off, he knew that full well and a masochistic and self-loathing part of him was trying to invoke that out of her.

But Rose didn't want to give him what he wanted because that son-of-a-whore was kissing her against a wall riddled with bullets that tore through Grant to get there.

"Jason, get off me!" She shoved him back meters with an aggressive, teary scream, her previously bewildered features locking hard into a rage. How _dare_ he?

"Fuck you,_ Arkham Knight_! You just told me my brother was shot and murdered where you're standing now and you're only interested in _kissing_!" Her yelling reached its crescendo and as if by magic, Jason's aggressive side was swallowed up and she was met by blue eyes filled with an ocean wall of so many emotions it was impossible to keep track.

"I don't - I - I didn't-" Stammering, he raked widened fingers harshly through his dark tresses, tearing strands into fisted hands from his scalp. His voice became shaky and unstable, tear-filled again.

"I _didn't_ want anyone to die." It really didn't sound like he was talking about Grant anymore but Rose didn't know who else.

And she didn't care. Her mind was only on the news of her brother's death and as it set into reality, tears spilt down her cheeks in cascades. She sniffed and cupped the noise with a hand over her mouth, weeping silently. _Dammit_, Grant. What the fuck did that self-sacrificing nutcase do to get shot up? He got into somebody else's fight, didn't he? Adeline always warned him against interfering and here was the result of not listening, bitter and cold in their faces.

She tried and wanted to understand why Slade would let four years drift by and make no attempt to mention this? Why the hell would he keep this to himself when it concerned the whole fucking family? 

Where anger and outrage should be nipping at her, she could only feel overwhelming sadness, like a ravine was tearing open in her and it had no bottom. 

Her blurring vision fell as if weighted to the ground, moving her feet to leave imprints in the dirt like there were answers to find beneath it. Pearls of tears drip-dropped to wet the earth soaked with blood not so long ago. If she looked hard enough, she could see streams of the rich colour running where she stood, pooling in lakes of red. Had it hurt? 

This had to be the physical manifestation of what it felt like to be _devastated_.

"I've got something I need you to deal with here.... yeah, yeah, standard mission stuff... oh, don't be like that. Don't you trust me?" 

Rose looked over to Jason, confused when he was talking in his normal voice again, stable and without the waiver of any emotion. He was holding a phone to his ear, staring at her from the corner of dark blue eyes while in his free hand, he rolled a trio of dirty bullets he must've pulled from the wall when she wasn't looking. They were bent and scratched-up brass, stained by years of weather and wear. 

And each one played its part in killing her brother. 

All of that distraught, the overbalance of sadness Jason revealed moments since, there wasn't a trace that remained for her to see and if she wasn't presently being devastated, she'd want to know where the switch in him was that turned him from Jason to the Arkham Knight and back. It was clear they weren't the same person. 

"Just hurry up... Yes, you'll probably be mad but I won't be here for you to kill me... Ah, perfect. Five minutes then." Jason smiled a little when he hung up, gazing at the phone screen before he shoved the device into his pocket, looking back to Rose, the girl he'd made cry in a way she'd never expected. 

"Imma head off, darlin'. Places to be." He told her, striding over and dropping a haphazard kiss onto the top of her head, exaggerating a _mwah_ while he did it. She didn't react in the slightest, say for the soft crying. He took her hand in his and turned it, palm upward, dropping the bullets he'd been toying with into it.

"Those are for you. Make a necklace or something. It'd look pretty fetching, I bet." The crunch of gravel was the parting words he gave her, walking away like he didn't just destroy a pillar of her life and leave the rest balancing on unsteady legs. And Jason did it like he was performing an act of public service.

Shaking, Rose's arms lifted to encircle herself, right as she collapsed onto her knees in the sand, a painful jolt quaking through her when she made contact with it but she didn't care enough to feel it. All she could feel was the coldness of a greying world. 

The bullets rolled out of her hand, hitting the sand.

"And... _Rose_," Jason paused before he was yet out of sight and earshot, and exemplary to that phenomenon she'd witnessed, again he sounded like another person.

"I'm sorry. _Really_. It sucks when people die violently." His attempt of sympathetic words falling a mile from the marker, Jason took his leave and left her there in the alleyway, gone for barely thirty seconds before Rose heard the heavy steps approaching her that she recognised as her father.

"Rose!" Slade's voice was a boom of worry and alarm that hardly made it into her perceptive field, nor did the run he broke into to get to her. He joined her on the ground, his arms hardly around her trembling body before she slumped into his chest with a miserable whine. 

"Rose, darling, what's wrong?" Slade stroked her hair back from her face but she wouldn't look at him. She couldn't, he'd see the weakness in her eye. And he _must_ know what ailed her, this location would be one he recognised grimly. He'd have familiarised himself with every crack in the walls and length of space here. There probably wasn't a night that went by without him visualising the bloodshed and bullets ripping through Grant. Hearing the slump of his body and the last ragged wet half-breaths... 

"Why... why d - didn't you t - tell me?" Rose sniffed when she could raise her head even a little, and she was staring at her father's distraught face. He _did_ know what she had just learned. His expression gave it away.

"I... I'm sorry." Slade whispered, suddenly holding her closer to his chest so she could feel the increase of his heartbeat, even through solid armour plating.

"I... I just didn't want it to be... real."

* * *

"_Ugh_, that was so sad." Jason sighed, slumping down on the ground bonelessly, his exhale tired and bothered. He did hope that girl would be okay now that she knew. He hated to be the bearer of bad news but Slade was never gonna tell her that her brother was dead.

She was entitled to know as much. Not that it ever occurred to Jason siblings cared about each other enough to cry at their deaths, heaven knows he wouldn't do the same for Dick or Tim. He didn't expect _her_ to cry... Hopefully, Slade knew how to handle that. Wasn't Jason's job to. He was just telling it how it was.

"She's kinda really hot though." Jason went on, directing his conversation to the rusted sword buried point down in the ground beside him, and needless to say, the sword didn't reply.

Slade didn't want anyone to know his son was dead, he buried him at a secluded spot at the foot of the mountains, green foliage stretching for miles and concealing the location. The weathered sword was the only indicator that anything was here beneath the dirt.

"Your sister, I mean. _Rose_..." He mused her name like it was the sweetest drop of honey ever to fall on his tongue. He hoped he didn't scare her too badly but it was either that or die from being within his radius. She was beautiful, he couldn't deny, very beautiful. In another life, he might pursue that vision but the Arkham Knight didn't have the time to be agonising over some poor sweet girl being freaked out by him. Right now more pressing duties demanded his attention.

Switching mobile data on, Jason pressed on Netflix to resume the episode he'd been on. He watched it all, adding commentary where deemed fit and when reaching the end, he took a deep, readying breath before clicking on season three. 

Grant promised they were going to finish the series later. Just four years and one death later. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~ Laa la laa la laa, Jason is t-err-ib-le, la laa.... ~


End file.
